I'm not going to go into my thoughts on all of this as I've already posted my advice on using positive methods, but I want to clarify that I never said treat the dog after she pees on the bed, I said treat her for coming to you when called off the bed. Try to catch her as she jumps on the bed, call her off, and then treat her for getting off and coming when called. It's called behavior shaping. You'd think a dog might decide "hey, I can get a treat if I jump on the bed and make her call me" but that isn't how it works. It actually conditions the dog to break the habit of jumping up there if done consistently. There are tons of books on positive training methods and using only positive methods even to curb problem behaviors.Originally Posted by Lori Jordan
Ignoring is one of the best things you can do with a negative behavior. If a dog does a negative behavior for attention and you scold him/her, you are still giving attention even if it's negative. "Ignore the bad, reward the good" method has worked wonders in training my two and in changing undesirable behavior.
edited to add: Also I should clarify too that when I say "treat" I mean reward. Both my dogs are food motivated and Tommy is very toy motivated, so I keep a couple toys that Tommy gets ONLY as reward toys, it's the only time he gets to play with them is when he is being rewarded for something, so to him they are extra special. The treats I use for reward are also only used as reward and never regularly given treats. It has to be special. A reward can be anything from a morsel of cheese to scratching in a favorite spot to receiving a favorite toy, but in all cases they are proven to work very well in training and modifying behavior. Most working dogs such as drug sniffing dogs, search and rescue, etc, have some special reward they are working for.
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